X marks the gender: what to call someone who isn't a he or she

They are not a "she" or a "he" or even a "she/he", not a "him" or a "her", and certainly not an "it". They are not "herself" and "himself", and what is theirs is no longer "hers" or "his". Exactly what they are, language-wise, remains unclear. But one thing's for sure: when it comes to the lexicon of a new, gender-neutral reality, it pays to watch your language.

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"I'm sorry, but it's complicated," says the president of Organisation Intersex International Australia, Morgan Carpenter.

Norrie has expressed a preference for the Germanic "hir" (for her/his), and "zie" for "he/she".

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A range of other gender-blind pronouns have come in and out of circulation over the years, from old Spivak, named after the American mathematician Michael Spivak ("E smiled", "Eir voice boomed", "E loves eirself"), and new Spivak ("Ey smiled", Ey loves emself"), to the Humanist lexicon ("Hu laughed", "I called hum", "Hu loves humself"), and Jayce's system (""Jee smiled", "Jee loves jemself").

But history shows invented pronouns to have a low survival rate in mainstream language. Carpenter says he doesn't "worry too much" about Spivaks or any other of the systems. "My suggestion is to just ask people how they want to be referred to. And if you can't ask them, just use their name."

Carpenter says that the issue is complicated by the fact Norrie is not, in fact, Australia's first genderless person.

"Alex MacFarlane, an intersex person born in Victoria, was the first person to receive a passport with an X sex marker, in 2003, on the basis of a Victorian 'indeterminate' birth certificate. Last year the Commonwealth government enabled any adult to choose an 'X' gender marker."

"To be honest," Carpenter says, "if someone has a non-binary gender identity I use their name or 'they'. The third person singular was good enough for Shakespeare. In Much Ado About Nothing, he writes: 'God send everyone their heart's desire.'"